PR 731, 19 July 2006
I turned to my poetic self who was sitting on the window seat in the plane. (I chose the aisle because of the need to pee every hour.) “Are you thinking about Drew again?”
“Drew lingers like an unwelcome fog. Heavy like a blanket, but the chill and mist brings sickness instead of warmth.” Her voice was breathy and monotonous. Such a loser.
“Why obsess on a guy you can never have? Queers like him don’t go for straight girls. Get over it,” I told her for the nth time. I was picking clean the remnants of shrimp and vermicelli salad on the food tray. Spotting hers still untouched, I asked, “Are you eating that?”
She handed it to me and forced to smile. The effort was breaking the marble-like skin on her face. “I wanted to stay on when he said goodbye to me…”
“He said goodbye to *me*,” I corrected her.
“We are one and the same, my friend,” she said. I shook my head and rolled my eyeballs. Where did I ever meet
this girl?
She took a deep breath to calm her self and let out a steady stream of air. She started to emo on the view outside – white and fluffy cumulus clouds sitting on a veil of cirrus (or was it stratus?). The bright blue sky was searing my pupils that I had to turn away and concentrate on Antonio Banderas dancing tango on the in-flight movie. “I am a wreck,” poetic self said. “Am a car crash, and Drew is the lamppost I had wrapped my self around.
Curses! I should have obeyed my heart and stayed.”
“In Bangkok for three more days?
Sira ka ba? I can’t even stand another minute in the office! It’s such a dreary place with all the vacant cubicles. And the language! Do you know that if we haven’t left today, we’d be bored
ad infinitum at the marketing synergy meeting, which is all in Thai? You’d break your neck trying to hold your head up in the conference room.”
She wagged a finger at me. “But my muse will be there, and we’d confer in our own bubble. The other people would just be a panoramic blur of color and chatter.” Dreamy again.
She’s hopelessly in love. If it were me, I would deny it, strongly and violently. It’s so corny
kasi, as corny as the limerick poetic self made up on the way to Terminal 2:
“There once was a guy named Drew,
Who was as gay as a bird was blue.
He came to Manila,
Left his boyfriend in Malaysia,
And now I am loving Drew, too.”
Ugh. See what I mean?
An hour later, while poetic self was chanting “Drew, Drew, my world is Drew,” strong turbulence rocked the plane. The carrier dipped a hundred feet down and leaned to its starboard side. I heard rain pelting against the plane’s exterior. In a panic, I prayed to God not to let me die in the Pacific. My stomach somersaulted and my head banged around the baggage compartment. I turned to poetic self and she was as calm as an idiot.
She laughed at my white-stricken face. How can she be so unfazed in an NDE (Near Death Experience)?
She said, “If I die, my final words shall be
'Take care, sweet love,
but burn no tea candles.
Light no incense.
I am flame itself dying away.
My embers shall turn black
but only after giving you warmth.’ ”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I reached for the paper bag and puked.
Para Kay Rosa/ For Rose
Three Fridays ago, we held a farewell party for 7 marketing associates leaving the company. They're the last batch of casualties from the delayering. I wrote the poems below for Rose, the Product Line Control Manager. The IT support guy in our team performed the Balagtas-slash-Tagalog version, while I did the Bronx-slash-English version. We had to do a translation because we had a couple of Brits and a Malaysian in the audience. The poems are mostly private jokes -- I'm afraid you won't find it funny . . . Anyway...This was my first poetry reading ever, and it was a blast! And I was a hit! Hahaha! I felt like Alicia Keys flippin' her tight braids in a dance sequence. Wished they had on video. Sayang. They enjoyed and laughed throughout the whole performance, with IT guy and me alternating between verses. Most importantly, Rose felt really loved and special. After that, we all sang Paper Roses for her on the Videoke. :-)PARA KAY ROSE – ANG GANDA NG LOLA KOAng Lola ko ay si Rose
Pero di nya aaminin
Dahil kahit na retired na sya
Matindi pa rin ang asim
Ang fasyon nya ay uso
Ang buhok, laging nasa moda
Pagdating sa opisina
Akala mo, umeeksena.
Pero simple lang ang lola ko
Kahit Beyonce sya gumiliw
Ang mga high heels at flipflops?
Natawaran nya sa Liliw.
Yosi nya ay pangmasa
Marlboro ang brand nya
With stress, this is how she’d cope
“I go down and have a smoke!”
Luv namin ang aming Lola
Umiinit man ang ulo nya
Clearance Sale bukas? Or PPC?
Obsolescence? “God Save the Baby!!”
IDF wala na naman?
Triple Treat walang laman?
Crazy Ninety-nine maraming nagagalit?
Pinatay ang aircon? “Shet talaga, ang inet!”
Makulay ang planning dahil sa kanya
Kami’y mga anak na kanyang mga ulila
Itangi mo kami, mahal namin kayo ---
Rosa …Bacilisa… Del Rosario.
FOR ROSE – MY GRANMATHA IS SLAMMIN’My grandmatha’s Rose
But she ain’t nevah gonna admit it
Though she’s gone to the hoe
She still likes to get jiggy widit
Her fashion’s Project Runway
Her do, sublime
When she gets to the office
Girl! Her presence is Dee--vine!
But my granmatha’s simple
Though Bootiliciooussss to the core
Her stilettos and flipflops
She purchased at the Liliw sto’e.
Her joints are ordinary
Marlboro’s what she likes to carry
Para maka-cope sa kanyang mga stress
“Yosi sa mezzanine kapag alas-tres!”
We feel you, grandmatha,
Even when you blow your top
Clearance Sale tomorrow? Or PPC
Obsolescence? “God Save the Baby?”
IDF nada?
Triple Treat zilch?
Crazy Ninety-nine got ‘em bitching?
Turned off the aircon? “It’s mo#@?f*ng hot in here!”
Our lives like bling bling because of you
We’re kids orphaned without you
Remember us, we love you
Rosa … Bacilisa.. Del Rosari-you.
The Point of No Return
(Drew is the same guy as in the previous blog entry. I just felt like changing the name.)I looked up from where I was sitting and saw Drew strolling casually past the X-ray machine at the airport entrance. The guy was still wearing a Converse collared shirt, this time in black. On the previous day he wore red; the day before that was a dark navy blue. He probably had hundreds of those folded in his hotel room closet. I put away the pretentious book I was reading, walked toward him, and then pecked him as he offered his cheek to me.
“It’s the third time today that somebody told me I look like Ninoy,” he said.
I had to laugh. Drew did look like Ninoy Aquino – short black hair, light Chinese skin, charismatic smile, and the geeky square-framed glasses. If it wasn’t for his thick Malaysian accent, he could actually pass for the late senator’s brother.
“Do this,” I said to him. I put my hand to my chin and struck a thoughtful pose. I pulled out a five-hundred Peso bill, “That’s Ninoy.”
He chuckled, “Yah, I know.” He did the pose and we erupted in snickers. “And I just realized as I was on my here, that the airport was named after him. The driver told me that the guy was shot dead and landed on the tarmac.”
“Yup. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen to you,” I said.
We entered the waiting area after hurdling emigration forms and the ten thousand bag inspections. As we were putting on our shoes and belts (the inspectors got a good feel of our body parts), I asked him how everything went the previous night at the office party.
“Oh, it was crazy. Everybody sang. I sang, would you believe it? I guess it was okay. It was Hello by Lionel Ritchie. Jen the HR guy also sang, and he had a good voice; I was surprised. Nats sang, … not so good as it was hyped up to be. He’s probably fit as an impersonator, mimicking that local singer…”
“Regine Velasquez?”
“Am not so sure. Anyway, his voice was too thin to be good enough.”
We decided to get breakfast at Delifrance. Although all the seats were taken when we got there, Drew somehow managed to get us a nice table as I got back from the queue.
“What did you do to get us seats?” I asked.
“The guy who was sitting here was scratching his balls and so I told him that this wasn’t a good place to do that. So he left and here we have a table.” He smiled like a misbehaving schoolboy. As I sat down, a vision of a man touching his genitals flashed before my eyes. I shuddered at the thought and shook it away. Eeew. This did not sit well with my ham and cheese croissant and coffee. Then again, Drew had a nasty sense of humor. I’d never know whether he’s kidding or not.
“Is Tyrone meeting us at the Bangkok airport?” I asked.
“Yyuup. He’ll be in the same car with us on the way to the hotel. I can’t wait to see my
baby…” His grin stretched deliciously across his face, and his eyes were dreamy, thinking about his boyfriend.
“I’m actually excited to meet Tyrone,” I lied.
“Really?”
“Leally.” That’s how the Thais in the office say it. It sort of became a team joke to pronounce all r’s like l’s … like Ladisson instead of Radisson, or ploduct instead of product.
Anyway, the truth was I was more
terrified than excited to meet Tyrone. Terrified that he actually exists, terrified that Drew is not making all that stuff up about being gay. Drew looked and behaved like the whiniest straight guy you would ever meet in your life, but when he talked about his lover, you’re reminded of Jake Gyllenhal in Brokeback Mountain when he said, “I can’t quit you” to Heath Ledger.
We talk about his driver Oliver, whom I call Oliver Stalker because he follows Drew wherever he goes. And then he goes on about Bridget his boss, whom he calls the White Pig. He talks on about how the package he’s getting isn’t
that great…
There is one thing to understand when having a conversation with this guy, and that is, it follows the Pareto Rule – 80/20. Eighty percent of the time, he does all the talking, while twenty percent is spent by you nodding your head in agreement.
When I finish my sandwich we walk the way to gate N1 boarding area. There’s still a full hour to go before the plane is ready.
We find a good seat and settle down. I raise and cross my legs on the bench to sit Indian style.
“Hey! I do that too!” he said.
“I know, you told me last week. It’s much more comfortable to sit this way.”
He removed his shiny leather shoes and sits the same way I do. Then he began to talk about his childhood and his family… There’s the Pareto Rule in full effect again.
Don’t get me wrong though. He actually makes it very interesting. If his brain were capable of understanding the mating habits of Amazon worm species, he would make it sound as if it’s the most exciting thing in the world. That is, if you could take the peppering of
fucks, shits, ass, asshole, pussy, and
dick, which he effortlessly manages to insert in the conversation.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m talking about myself again,” he said.
“You finally notice,” I replied.
“Let’s talk about you. Okay, tell me something about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?” I squirmed a bit. Please don’t ask me about my non-existent love life, I thought.
“Oh-kay. Did you ever have a boyfriend?”
I tilt my head to the side, “What do you think?”
His right eyebrow rises a few millimeters above the frame of his glasses. “Of… course…”
I smile. “Good answer. Although I think you weren’t sure it was the right one, ei?”
“So, what happened?”
I hate talking about my love life. Let me correct that. I hate talking about my former love life. It’s not that it’s painful or unhealed or anything. It’s just that it’s already part of my past, buried deep in the overcrowded cemetery of my mind. Talking about it would be similar to getting a shovel and uprooting the cogon grass above the corpses.
I skip the details, and show a lack of energy for the subject. As expected, Drew makes a Kris Aquino of himself by talking about his past boyfriends. I learn that he has more than a cat has lives. There’s a bitter feeling for all the gay and straight men in the world welling up like bile in my mouth. Like a good girl I control myself and swallow.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I was talking about myself again,” he said.
Déjà vu, I thought. He apologizes by asking me about the most exciting thing that has happened to me.
Time to be brilliant, I say to myself.
“I had always… loved singing. I used to be in a choir, and I sang soprano. I was a soloist, and I sang good soprano parts. We toured and sang for a long time. But I had to leave because I didn’t like the direction the choir was going.”
“Leally? You can sing? That’s amazing! You know what, I had always envied people who can sing. That’s one thing that I cannot do. What’s your favorite song?” His eyes were sparkling for the first time today. He was actually more excited, if I may say so, than when Tyrone called a while ago to tell him he was about the board the plane in KL.
I told him it was a Spanish song called “Eres Tu”. He hasn’t heard of it, so I cleared my throat, and took a deep breath. In the softest voice that only he could hear, I sang.
“Como una promesa, eres tu, eres tu
Como una manana de verano
Como una sonrisa, eres tu, eres tu
Asi, asi, eres tu.”
It wasn’t
that great a performance, compared to what I could do before in front of a thousand people. But it was the best I could manage on a very early morning with no vocal exercise. Fortunately, the song made the effect I wanted – it blew him away.
“Oh. My. God!” he says. “The hairs on my arm were standing up! I am…”
Speechless. For the first time.
But that didn’t last long. And it doesn’t matter. The few seconds that I had him there was priceless. I was at the center of his universe, and it was worth coming out of my multi-padlocked suitcase to sing for him.
The flight officers announced that it’s time to board. Drew and I talked more about our favorite sopranos, songs, collections…
There’s much to say, to listen to. We’re going to be great friends, I know that. But something in my gut was telling me that this was going to be a complicated relationship, and I’d be hurt if I don’t watch out.
C’est la vie.
Que cera, cera.
Whatever.
